Recognition of Azerbaijan’s efforts in education, sports and intercultural dialogue
Azerbaijan is hosting the first Global Forum on Youth Policies at the moment. The forum will serve as a platform for participation of young people in global political affairs, such as legislature, political decision-making and development of a common mechanism in the sector.
Maher Nasser, the director of the Outreach Division in the UN Department of Public Information, said in Baku that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had shown great interest in the event and noted its importance in a video message for attendees. Nasser said the forum was very important for expansion of international cooperation in youth policy.
Baku opened 200 places for registering online and got 4,700 requests to reserve them from over 100 countries. One of the guests of the forum is Marta Vieira da Silva (Brazil), recognized by FIFA as the best female football player five times (in 2006-2010). She observed the training of the Azerbaijani national female football team (aged 17-19) at the Bayil Arena Stadium.
Authorities of the UN, the Council of Europe and UNESCO took part in the forum.
Azerbaijan took the forum in Baku as recognition of its efforts in sports and youth policy, and active development of the country. Youth policy in Baku became an element of state policy, youth plays an important role in the political, economic, humanitarian and social sectors. Azerbaijan has hundreds of NGOs and youth organizations. Youth policy encourages the formation of a new healthy generation, promotes talented young people contributing to the future of the country. Azerbaijan has a law on youth policy, it has realized two programs called “Azerbaijani Youth.” A Youth Fund has recently been organized, its finances are spent on supporting young people in projects associated with culture, education and political reforms.
Speaking of youth policy, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev assured that one of the priorities of the government was education: “Only educated people, people with knowledge in different sectors can help the country, help themselves develop… Education, science, technological innovations are the main instruments for successful development. It is education, knowledge and technologies that are the driving forces of all humanity, not energy resources, not natural resources, not oil and gas.”
Baku hopes that close cooperation with international education centers would allow Azerbaijan to have more achievements in the sector. The government of Azerbaijan has been financing education programs for the younger generation in the leading universities of the world for years. This year, about 40 million euros were spent on training young people abroad.
Development of sports has become another priority of youth policy in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani athletes represent the country at international competitions, championships of the world and Europe and the Olympic Games. Azerbaijan demonstrated better results at the Olympic Games in London in 2012 than at previous Summer Olympic Games, the Azerbaijani team was ranked 30th among over 200 countries in the world. The Summer Youth Olympics of 2014 were notable for Azerbaijan, the country was among the top 10 of about 200 countries of the world. The policy for development of the Olympic movement, sports and construction of modern sports centers shows progress.
Azerbaijan has become a host of many European and world championships. The first European Games will be held here, over 6,000 athletes will participate. Azerbaijan will host the World Chess Olympiad in 2014, the Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017. All the efforts of the Azerbaijani authorities are doubtlessly promoting dialogue between civilizations, peoples and countries.
“Azerbaijan is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state, all our citizens live in peace, and we contribute to the dialogue of civilizations,” Ilham Aliyev reminded. The country has hosted the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue twice and the Baku International Humanitarian Forum four times to discuss cultural diversity, multiculturalism, cooperation and interaction of people from all over the world.
The Baku Declaration will be passed at the end of the Global Forum on Youth Policies. It will be recommendatory and will allow development of a common mechanism for participation of young people in political affairs of the world in the future.
A Tbilisi-Moscow flight will cost about $220By Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for Vestnik KavkazaThe Russian airline company Aeroflot made a Tbilisi-Moscow flight on Monday night for the first time in quite a while. This became possible within the framework of the Russian-Georgian agreement on renewal of regular flights. Russian airlines had been flying to Georgia before that. But charter flights are one thing, while the restoration of regular air communication, broken off after the arrest of several Russian officers suspected of cooperating with Russian intelligence in 2006, is a completely different story.The Special Envoy of the Georgian PM for Relations with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin reached an agreement to start regular flights at a meeting in Prague. Russian and Georgian airlines will no longer request aviation authorities for every flight, risking money and fearing surprises. The framework agreement gives way to daily flights without additional permissions. It must be noted that bureaucratic procedures affected prices and complicated the work of airlines.Over 20 companies, including Aeroflot, VIM Airlines, Globus, S7, Transaero, Iral Airlines and UTair, have asked the department of aviation transportation of the Georgian Ministry for Economic Development for permission to grant licenses for regular flights.Georgia has been pursuing an open sky policy since the presidency of Saakashvili: not a single country in Europe (maybe even in the world, according to some data) has opened its skies to foreign companies so much that it “forgot” about the interests of national airlines. Airzena tried to protest to no avail, it was ordered to compete in equal conditions. Obviously, a small company with three leased Airbus jets cannot compete with Aeroflot.The Georgian authorities want to see more Russian tourists. Many airlines and flights mean cheap tickets, it seems appealing to tourists. That is another reason for the activity of Russian airlines.Meanwhile, the Georgian opposition is worried that the return of Aeroflot will ruin the pro-Western course of Tbilisi. “Russians never do anything for no reason, they will definitely make tickets cheaper, so that Georgians would fly to Europe through Moscow, instead of Istanbul or Munich, in other words, Moscow will be the main “window on the world” for our citizens,” bemoans Mikhail Machavariani, a leader of Saakashvili’s United National Movement.But if a “window” or a “door” are comfortable, why not let ordinary people use them instead?It has only been declared so far that a flight between Tbilisi and Moscow will cost about $220, a low-cost Pegasus flight from Istanbul to Tbilisi costs a maximum of $100, or even cheaper if you book a ticket earlier.In any case, the more airlines there are, the better passengers will be doing, considering that they are interested in having the most diverse choice possi
